Though the forces of Hell stand Against us
by Imperator Gnome
Summary: My first Fic on this site. Spoilers through White night.
1. Chapter 1

AN: Right, my first Fan Fic.. well for this subject universe anyways … Just a little bit of action to test the waters really. This is also to introduce the two OC's that I will be using in this series… Or at least the two main OC's. Also, this at the very least will be written in the third person, which might be unusual for a Dresden fic, but screw you that's how I'm doing it for now.

Also, I hope you know that I don't own this.

Oh yeah, and go buy one of the Dresden file books if you haven't already.

He blinked back his disbelief as yet another wave of ghouls charge the two of them, and raised his staff to send the opening salvo in what would soon turn into a slugging match. He paused to select a spell form his vast arsenal as they approached over barren plains, quietly calling the correct incantation to memory. He didn't use any set language for his spells, but a mixture of Greek, Latin, Spanish, and several words and phrases he had taken from the comforts of his youth, the time before his magical abilities manifested themselves.

So as a result, many of the words for his spells were from books and video games, it was so nice to be young wasn't it? Finally he raised his staff and poured his will into the carved wood, before he finally released the spell with a shout. "Melus Memoriam!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. Red waves of lightning shot from his staff and slammed into the onrushing horde or enemies, before it simply enwrapped them. Many quickly stopped, while others fell to the ground and began to wail and cry.

His rigid will was all that kept him from seeing the fringe effects of the spell in his own mind. All the memories that he wished he could forget, all the evil emotions multiplied a thousand fold into an uncontainable mass of magic flung suddenly upon a creature's mind could be traumatizing, though he certainly had no wish to experience it himself, not after going through all those events at least once already.

He shook his head to clear it of all the unwanted thoughts, and soon refocused on the enemies closer to him, and the one who was keeping them away from him. She was launching so many spells of ice at the ghouls who had been foolish enough to attack them that the entire area began to frost over as the laws of nature took over. She had always been a more brutal fighter then him, his guardian of sorts, even if he could be just as brutal or more if needed.

As one of the ghouls wrapped a forearm around her neck from behind, he felt anger welling up inside of him, as well as the cool and somewhat rational thought of destroying whatever had dared touch her. He raised his staff and charged into the fray from his position behind the conflict. "Frendo Aliento!" he nearly screamed and invisible force closed around the ghoul's throat. If it wanted to choke her, then it would feel its own pain redirected into it.

He lifted his staff higher, and the ghoul's neck visibly deformed, crushed into a thin pole that barely managed to connect its head and body. The ghoul struggled against the magic, its hands releasing the girl who was so important to him, who had been traveling with him for such a long time, as it began to clutch desperately at its own throat. Its eyes were nearly popping out of its skull as he increased the pressure with a mere outpouring of will and anger, his eyes clouded by a veil of red.

She hadn't even bothered look behind her as she began to attack the onrushing beasts with waves of pure destructive cold. Each movement somehow graceful, yet full of barely restrained metaphysical energy, each thrust of her staff followed with stabbing icicles or the invisible hand of freezing death. She wasn't physically powerful, though she was stronger then some, but she was beautiful to behold even while merely sitting still. Now with her brown hair flying around her she looked like a goddess in physical form.

He tore his eyes off of her to look back at the ghoul in his magical grip, only to see that it had relinquished its hold on life a while ago. He growled and with another surge of will crushed its neck into nothing, and watched with detached interest as its head rolled off, blood already shooting into the air in a fountain of black rain.

They were coming closer, overwhelming them through sheer numbers, and he quickly moved to take a combative place near her. He thrust his staff into the face of another beast as it closed on them, and whispered his spell softly. The ice of his companions spells finding its way into his speech, "Degen ictus." A spike of pure white light stabbed forward straight through the ghouls head as he turned, saying the words louder as he targeted more and more enemies inside his spell.

They were now surrounded, and they both stopped slinging spells as the enemy seemed to stop in a ring around them. His senses stood on edge as he listened to them merely breathe a sound almost like the distant rumble of thunder because of the sheer size of the army they faced. He probed deeper into the sound as his eyes stared at the dark shapes that surrounded them, the demonic faces that seemed scary beyond belief. Finally he heard something reassuring to him, and he felt courage immediately begin to surge through him. Dull warmth swam through his limbs as he once more felt the will to fight upon him.

She was calmly going through her spells, deciding which one to cast first in her flawless Korean, a language he had never bothered to study despite his Korean heritage. While they were both metaphysical powerhouses, she had always been the fighter between them, he was merely the finesse, and when he needed to be, he was also their power, but it was always her that gave him the strength to use the magic inside of him. It had always been her that convinced him to fight when it was right, and always her to give him the courage to fight when she couldn't be there to do it herself.

He only paused to listen to her enticingly feminine voice for a little longer, before he finally spoke. "Can you shield us Grace?" he asked.

He could only imagine her smile as she replied, "Of course Scott."

"In five then," he breathed, his mind readying what might be his final spell, "I'll start it."

He felt her lean comfortably against him, there backs touching lightly, and once more warmth surged through him, as well as all the emotion he needed to get the spell right. He raised his staff and watched the ghouls begin to move in, walking slowly towards what they believed to be a defeated pair of opponents. 

"One…," he said just loud enough for her to hear as more and more energy built inside his staff. He saw lightning cackle between his staff and the ground as he gathered energy from the surrounding area. So much magic had been used in that area that it almost took a tangible form as he drew it into his spell. The ice that had littered the ground before suddenly disappeared as he drew the waste magic into a swirling vortex around him.

"Greedy," she teased as she to began to gather energy for her shielding spell. Lightning traveled between their two upraised staffs as their magical energies touched, sending jolts of shared emotions into him. However even the display of their power couldn't stop the ghouls as they gathered momentum in their charge.

_Three…,_ he counted silently to himself, preparing to shout his spell, and hopefully save them from what would be an impossible fight. He grinned darkly as his energies built into more and more dangerous peaks, almost becoming a physical presence around them.

_Five!_ He slammed his staff into the ground, and a shockwave spread out around them as he screamed his spell. "Igneus Muerte!" his voice echoed, amplified by the pure magical power that he had gathered. Fire bloomed from the ground all around them, ravaging the army around them as more and more of the magical flames appeared. He closed his eyes, trying to escape the blinding light of the fire all around them, just as he heard Grace's voice sound in the roar of the hell he had unleashed.

A maelstrom of winds sprang up around them as icy ramparts built themselves around their position. He felt cool ice block the heat as well as the impossibly bright light while the winds muffled the roaring flames, as well as the screams of a the dying ghouls. He backed further against Grace as he listened to the few screams that managed to break through, feeling a small measure of comfort in her presence as he felt… guilt… or perhaps shame for dealing out such death and pain.

Finally the firestorm ended and the walls that she had erected around them crumbled into nothing. He fell forward as the tension that had kept him standing ran from his limbs. He merely fell forward, and the sight of the former battlefield filled him. The ground that hadn't been protected by their shield had been turned into glass, covered only by a thin coating of ash that had once been an army ready to eviscerate them. He groaned, and finally saw his reflection in the glass ground, just as Grace saw him falling, and let loose a gasp of concern and surprise.

He only saw a blur of black hair in the imperfect mirror, before he landed with a small thud, and only saw his own brown eyes staring back at him. They were slightly wider then normal after the battle, but otherwise they were the same two orbs that he had known from birth. Even so he quickly shut his eyes, he had no desire to see what lay inside his soul at this moment.

He felt small hands quickly turn him onto his back, and he was soon looking up at the beautiful face of Grace. He smiled slightly, as he felt her arms wrap around him, and her voice soon sounded. "Scott? Are you ok? Please tell me you're ok!" she quietly as se held him in her arms.

"'M fine," he barely managed to mumble before he passed into the merciful darkness of a dreamless sleep.


	2. Broken: Chicago or Bust!

He had a dream while in that forced slumber, a vision more like it of things to come. He saw himself, broken upon an altar, and so many more things. So many horrible things, which made him scream from within his prison. A sound that echoed across the confines of his skull. His flame, it was dieing, and for all his magical prowess and pure strength, he didn't know how to salvage it. His magical strength lay dieing, shattered into thousands of pieces. What could he do, besides wait for sorrow to overtake him?

He endured this torment within his skull, until finally he noticed something. He heard the sound of someone crying above him, and realized that he didn't just feel like he was floating, in some small ways he was in fact flying over the ground. They were arms that encircled him, keeping his back from touching the glassed dirt below them, and he heard the gentle sobbing that could only be Grace.

He was in fact awake, though he didn't know how long he had been lying there, dead to the world. He cautiously opened one eye, only to find that brown hair fell over his eyes, shielding them from the ravages of the far to bright sun. "I'm awake, it's ok," he said quietly as he weakly put an arm around her.

He felt her arms tighten around him, and he felt the illusion of safety wash over him. The offensive light of the sun, and the bitter cold that seemed to contradict that light no longer mattered to him, yet his mind knew the danger of staying here. "OK, we have to go Grace, we need to get out of faeryland," he said a little more urgently.

That seemed to penetrate the worry that had consumed her, and she quickly stood, helping him up soon after. "I don't think I can get us out of here Scott, I've… I spent too much in that battle," she said quietly as she held her staff awkwardly. He sighed and almost hugged his staff to him as he thought of what exactly that would mean.

His own magic was near nonexistent because of how much raw energy he had poured into that last attack, so unless she could find a way to take them out of this they would be stuck in what was sometimes known as the Never Never. Frankly, he much preferred faeryland. The name never never always gave him disturbing thoughts of a far-too-pale man with a plastic nose.

"You have to try, I'll help you as much as I can, but you have to do it," he said, taking her free hand in his to help comfort the both of them.

She merely nodded, and closed her eyes to gather her fractured energy as he strained as hard as he could to gather the diffuse strands of magic that he could still control. He gathered as much as he could, and began pulling on the fabric of the world to try and push through into what he knew as reality. He felt beads of sweat begin to collect on his brow, and he tried to pull a little harder.

If he pulled to hard though, he would snap, and magic would be lost to him forever. As it was, his magic could only be compared to a metaphysical yard of twine. Yet with that small amount of twine he was trying to pull a second world into existence inside a small area. Even with the power he usually had at his disposal it was a difficult job, but now it was neigh impossible.

Then he felt Grace's power join his own, and he felt the fabric of the Never Never move as a gate way into reality forced its way into existence. He released his grip on the power, and quickly jumped through, pulling Grace along behind him.

When one creates a portal into or out of the never never, where it comes out is determined more by the creators state of mind and the way one associates the things around him to things in the other world. These two wizards were lost, they had no reference point, and all that was on their minds was their past conflict, yet they also searched for safety from battle.

Yet most of all they searched for a wizard, for magical power on par with what they had lost. There is only one place in the world which happens to meet all these criteria. They would awake in Chicago, Illinois. A place which had been home to a war between necromancers, had been the site of major disruption in the barrier between reality and madness, and yet managed to be a place of safety, housing the eastern commander of the Wardens in America, and being accorded neutral grounds in the war between vampire and wizard.

In short, Chicago was both battleground and a place of safety, but most importantly, it held a very strong wizard.

When he had given his Denarius to the church, he hadn't done for closure or any other reason that one might expect. In fact, after he had found out that Lash had taken a metaphorical bullet to the head for him he had been more tempted then ever to grab that coin. The thing was, you couldn't have someone live in your head for so long, without bonding with them on some level.

The fact that she had sacrificed herself for him only made the relationship between a fallen angel and Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden so much stronger, and that was why he had been so tempted to take up that coin, just to hear Lash once more, to feel her presence in his head. 

He had heard her when he had played his guitar, the familiar voice, the familiar words, the familiar actions. But after that, he hadn't heard anything.

He couldn't even sleep now that a relationship he had shunned for so long had been destroyed. Or at the very least he was having a lot more trouble sleeping, and staying asleep. That would help explain why he was willing what he saw before him to sleep deprivation, and make a promise to himself, which he would probably break, to get some more sleep.

If it hadn't been for the look of shock and horror on his apprentice's face he would have been more then happy to continue working. But she saw it as well, and while she may or may not get more sleep then him, she would most likely not have the same hallucination as him.

The air in his lab seemed to be rippling, and a rip appeared over his rebuilt model of Chicago. To him it looked suspisciously like a gateway to the Never Never, but no one came out of it, or at least he didn't think anyone had. A gigantic crystal prism dropped out of the rip, and fell onto his small city.

Then the rip simply disappeared as the crystal began to melt away. And he was once more surprised as the outline of a person appeared in the center of the prism, though he couldn't make out the mans features through the steam created by liquefying crystal. He did however recognize the language being spoken by the man.

It was Latin, spoken by someone who knew the language perfectly, but the tone was less perscise than the Merlin's own speech. _Hell's Bells. I guess it's just another day for Chicago's only practicing wizard._


End file.
